About the Book:

As thorough as it is graceful...This is as fine a book as one will find on the subject. – Scientific American

Darwin wrote The Origins of Species in 1859, long before paleontologists and geologists worked out the chronology of life on Earth, long before biologists uncovered the molecules that underlie heredity and natural selection. The great irony of Darwin’s work is that not until the twentieth century would scientists be able to recognize its true power. Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea takes readers to the cutting edge of evolutionary biology—from the origins of life to mass extinctions to the latest theories on diseases, sex, and psychology—and explores the far-reaching implications of Darwin’s theory on our place in the world.

Originally published in 2001, it is now available in a reissued edition with a new forward by Carl Zimmer, exploring the new scientific breakthroughs and political controversies that have emerged since the book first came out.

Steve Jones, author of Darwin’s Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated
“This brilliant book is a virtual Voyage of the Beagle. Carl Zimmer’s book shows, with the benefit of a hundred and fifty years of hindsight, how right Darwin was; and how his great idea has had a triumph more complete than even he could have imagined. Darwin would have loved it: and anyone who wants to know why life is the way it is need look no further.”